Inked by Enriqué AlcatenaColored by Sam ParsonsLettered by Tim Harkins

Hawkworld is definitely of its time. Like Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters (1987), Black Orchid (1989), Adam Strange: The Man of Two Worlds(1990), Twilight (1990-91), and probably others I don't know about, Hawkworld was a miniseries of three double-length issues that dusted off a slightly moribund character (or characters) for a new era, by going darker and more intense. All of these series except Man of Two Worlds resulted in follow-ups, if not ongoings, so clearly something about this formula worked.

Hawkworld is a little different from the formula, though. Longbow Hunters, Black Orchid, and Man of Two Worlds all acknowledge the history of their characters, even as they tweak it-- they're more what we might call re-origin stories, crucibles that take pre-existing characters and give them a new set-up for ongoing adventures. Hawkworld, however, presents a new origin for Katar "Hawkman" Hol. In fact, strictly speaking, there's no superheroics in this book at all, as Hol adopts no secret identity; the book is entirely set on his homeworld of Thanagar.

Make Thanagar Great Again.
from Hawkworld vol. 1 #1

I don't know much about Hawkman, to be honest, but this is the most intrigued I've ever been by him, and I found the depiction of Thanagar much more interested than what was seen in some of the 2000s space comics I've read. Thanagar is the capital of an interstellar empire, but one where cultural rot has set in. It's a morally complex set-up: our protagonist is the one who's afraid of outside cultural influences! The Thanagarian elite no longer produce anything worthwhile themselves, but depend on other worlds for their food, music, and entertainment, especially mind-altering drugs. They also import slave labor, but when the laborers have served their purpose, they get dumped onto the surface, the "Downside" away from the towers where the elite fly. Katar is a Thanagarian police officer, the son of Thanagar's foremost scientist, who asks for a job patrolling the Downside even though he could have had a cushy desk position. Unlike others, Katar cares about the history of his people-- a consistent mark of the story are monuments to Thanagar's past that only Katar cares about.

Well at least someone is.
from Hawkworld vol. 1 #2

As you might imagine, Katar discovers more and more about the rot of his civilization, even as he rots himself, tempted into taking alien drugs by the attractive Shayera, the intriguing daughter of one of his father's friends. The story itself is pretty standard stuff, to be honest, but writer and penciller Timothy Truman elevates it by telling it well, with lots of details of writing and art alike. We actually don't know a whole lot about Thanagar beyond the broad strokes, but it feels like a fully lived in, real world. My only real objection is that Katar's principal opponent, Byth, seems a little conveniently too responsible for all the evils of an entire decadent civilization. Though one of the things I did like is the extent to which Katar himself is shown to be culpable, and how he spends a long time coming to terms with that culpability and making restitution for it. Until he's forced to fight again, Katar doesn't want to take down the government or anything; he wants to supply medicine and food to the inhabitants of the Downside.

I don't think she uses that nickname in the Hawkworld ongoing, but she sure comes up with her fair share of other ones.
from Hawkworld vol. 1 #3

The story ends with a set-up for new adventures; Katar and Shayera learn Byth has escaped to "some small green planet far beyond the borders of the empire." It also ends with Katar attempted to improve the plight of the Downside by working the society from the inside. All of this was followed up on in the Hawkworld ongoing; I've read the first issue thus far, and I look forward to seeing how the world introduced here is developed, though I'm disappointed that Katar heads off to Earth in issue #1, as I'd like to see more of this Thanagar. I know Hawkworld is notorious for its continuity issues, but as a story on its own merits, it's a sold re-imagining of a character I didn't care about, and I can see why a follow-up was commissioned.

About This Blog

This is the blog of Steve Mollmann. I started this blog in November 2011 as a way of chronicling my reading (importing some, but not most, of the posts from an old LiveJournal). I review books here on Mondays through Thursdays, and also provide monthly lists of all the books I've read and purchased. I cross-post most of my reviews to my LibraryThing account. My reading tastes are dominated by comic books, science fiction and fantasy, Star Trek and Doctor Who novels, and literary fiction, especially Victorian and neo-Victorian. Under this name I have also published a number of pieces of fiction, most notably the Star Trek novel A Choice of Catastrophes.

This is also the blog of Steven Mollmann. Under this clever pseudonym, I am an English academic: I completed my Ph.D. in English literature, with a specialization in Victorian literature and science, at the University of Connecticut in 2016. I am currently a Term Assistant Professor of English and Writing at the University of Tampa. I have published a number of journal articles about Victorian science and early science fiction under this name, and am currently at work on a book manuscript about the scientist in British fiction from Mary Shelley to H. G. Wells.

The remit of this blog has broadened somewhat. Though it began primarily as a vehicle for book reviews, I try to post something else once a week, whether it be television commentary (my wife and I are watching Farscape for the first time) or amusing anecdotes from my childhood or commentary on teaching and academia or stories I discover in my research.

I also review audio dramas (primarily Big Finish Doctor Who releases) for Unreality SF. I usually crosslink those posts here.

"Men can do nothing without the make-believe of a beginning. Even science, the strict measurer, is obliged to start with a make-believe unit, and must fix on a point in the stars' unceasing journey when his sidereal clock shall pretend that time is at Nought. His less accurate grandmother Poetry has always been understood to start in the middle; but on reflection it appears that her proceeding is not very different from his; since Science, too, reckons backward as well as forward, divides his unit into billions, and with his clock-finger at Nought really sets off in medias res. No retrospect will take us to the true beginning; and whether our prologue be in heaven or on earth, it is but a fraction of that all-presupposing fact with which our story sets out." –George Eliot, Daniel Deronda (1876)